Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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The more people dig into statements made by Rick Santorum over the last few years, the more it is revealed just how warped the guy is. He seems absolutely obsessed with regulating your sex life, while projecting that obsession on everyone else. This is from a forum he took part in during 2008:[Read more…]

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The group defending California’s Prop 8 in court have filed a request for an en banc rehearing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Some legal experts thought that was unlikely, that they would appeal directly to the Supreme Court instead. It is rare that an en banc rehearing is granted, but no more rare than the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case. Here’s an amusing line from the article:[Read more…]

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“Rick Santorum is a nice smiley fanatic. He does not believe in evolution or global warming or women in the workplace. He equates gay sex with bestiality (Rick ‘Man on Dog’ Santorum). He equates contraception with the guillotine. Only a brain-dead party could think him a worthy presidential candidate. Yet he is praised by television pundits, night and day, for being ‘sincere’ and ‘standing by what he believes.’ He is the principled alternative to the evil Moderation of Mitt Romney and the evil Evil of Newt Gingrich. He is presented as a model Catholic. Torquemada was, in that sense, a model Catholic.”

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Tea Party favorite and wingnut extraordinaire Allen West has taken to complaining on his Facebook page about how expensive it is to fill up his Hummer — and how it’s all Obama’s fault that gas prices have gone up. Politico reports:[Read more…]

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This is hilarious. One of the Virginia Republican legislators who supported the mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasound bill told his fellow delegates that his wife had refused to have sex with him because of that. And the level of detail he offered is hilarious. This is how Republican husbands try to get their wives to have sex:[Read more…]

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Only a couple weeks after debuting a racist campaign commercial during the Super Bowl and then adamantly defending it to anyone who would listen, Pete Hoekstra is now quietly trying to erase that ad from all of his web and social networking sites.[Read more…]

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From the department of hyperbolic and nonsensical rhetoric: Pat Robertson on the 700 Club said that those who are criticizing Rick Santorum for saying that Satan is attacking America are going to turn the country into a “secular atheistic dictatorship.”[Read more…]

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Rick Santorum is defending his loony statements in a speech at Ave Maria University about Satan tearing down American institutions. When asked by reporters about it, he said that digging up that speech was “absurd” and that it’s just an attack on his faith:[Read more…]

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The first episode of Culture Wars Radio debuted on Tuesday. Here’s a link to the show page on the WPRR website, where you can download or listen to it. By the way, now taking suggestions for next week’s long distance dedication. Last week I used the suggestion of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover for Newt Gingrich. Leave suggestions in the comments.

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I have often made the argument that the Bible can be used to justify almost any position. Kind, decent, reasonable people can find plenty of support in it for being kind, decent and reasonable; hateful, barbaric people can find plenty of support for being hateful and barbaric. All Christians pick and choose the parts they like and discard the parts they don’t. Like Rick Santorum’s views on dominion and the environment:[Read more…]

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Soledad O’Brien did a story about Jessica Ahlquist on CNN. Jessica shows once again a poise and thoughtfulness that is far beyond her years; I wish I’d been that composed at that age. They even show our Evil Little Thing t-shirt website, which is very cool.[Read more…]

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In the age of internet spam, sometimes you get funny things in your inbox. Some wingnut group I’d never heard of called Public Advocate somehow decided that PZ Myers has an @freethoughtblogs.com email address and they keep sending him — meaning me, since anything sent to an email address that doesn’t exist at that domain comes to me — hilarious fundraising emails. I’ll post the latest one below.[Read more…]

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The Republican leader of the Indiana House of Representatives has, as expected, killed off a bill passed by the Senate that would have allowed local schools to teach creationism in science classrooms as long as they taught a whole bunch of different religious myths.[Read more…]

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Jeffrey Kuhner, who is employed by the Rev. Moon to dish out ridiculous propaganda for the Washington Times, joined wingnut radio host Janet Mefferd on her show for a serious discussion of whether President Obama was more like Lenin or more like Stalin. Right Wing Watch has the transcript:[Read more…]

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A U.S. District Judge in Northern California, who was appointed by George W. Bush, ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. This is the first ruling to come down since the Obama administration decided not to defend DOMA in court; the defense here was done by the U.S. House. Chris Geidner has some quotes from the ruling:[Read more…]